Monday, August 29, 2016

She Has a Name...

When we purchased Red Head as the kids new home, we decided to keep her name. It's such a fitting name, after all.

Before we picked her up she spent some time in an industrial yard being blasted with something they called "black Betty" or "black beauty" or some such thing. All we knew was that it left this horrible fine black dust that we are still finding months later. But we digress...

To do this process the name had to be removed from the transom. Since then she has been "nameless."

Fortunately, we have our good friend Jeryl who does, among other things, boat lettering. A few emails back and forth and a FedEx box arrives. But how to get them on? A few more emails with Jeryl telling Jeff, "It's easy," and we decided to give it a try. Hey, worst case, Jeryl could always FedEx a new set.

So this weekend, in celebration of Jeff's birthday, we decided to give it a go. It wasn't too bad. This is definitely a task where Jeff's ana... I mean, exacting personality comes in handy. Sunday, we laid down the red background for the name.

Monday morning, the hailing port.

Key Largo, FL is harking back to her roots. When she was built she was christened Key Largo.

Finally, Monday evening, the white overlay on the name and it was complete.

We think she came out pretty nice.

Where were Dylan and Dee Dee for all of this, you ask? We deemed it unwise to allow them on the cockpit, so they had to supervise from the salon. But as you can see it turned out just right

Great Blog! Black Beauty is the slag particle left over from melted steel being poured or handled. The tiny particles are a cheap substitute for sand (for sand blasting). The good is that it is steel and it removes just about anything. The bad part is it is steel and it rusts. And ends up staining everything. Cheers from Miami. William.

Since you all now own a steel boat...check out this company " Dustless Blasting" really clean and effective way of getting rid of paint and rust on steel, fiberglass or....have a nice website Dustlessblasting.com...

We were saddened to lose our beloved senior canine crew member Dyna on May 14, 2013. She will never be forgotten and will always be in our hearts. We remember her on the masthead picture of her and Dylan as they began their TakingPaws adventures. You can share a glimpse of her extraordinary life onboard in the TakingPaws archives or her memorial posting.

DeLorme inReach

Red Head

65' Florida Bay Coaster

About Us

Karen and Jeff have logged some 40,000 nautical miles cruising between Maine, Key West, the Bahamas, and the Great Loop on their DeFever 53RPH named aCappella. Their crew are two yellow Labrador retriever dogs - Dylan (9) and Dee Dee (3). Dylan (named for the Celtic god of the waves) is the grandson of Dyna. Dyna is also the great-great-grandmother of both of Dee Dee's parents, hence Dee Dee for "Dyna on both sides."

In 2016 Dylan and Dee Dee acquired a new home, a Florida Bay Coaster named Red Head. They look forward to even more adventures cruising with two brunettes, two blondes, and a redhead.

The blog and adventures center around the voyages taken together generally through the eyes of the canine crew.

Karen and Jeff were the founders of ActiveCaptain which was acquired by Garmin International in 2017.